Ancient Mayan pyramid destroyed for road fill

Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel – The 2,300-year-old Mayan pyramid at Noh Mul was destroyed to make fill for roads in Belize, local media report.

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Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel5 photos

Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel – The limestone from which the pyramid is made is prized by local contractors for building and repairing.

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Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel5 photos

Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel – The pyramid was overgrown with trees and shrubs, but archeologist John Morris said there was no mistaking the structure. The willful destruction of ancient sites or monuments carries a penalty of 10 years in prison or a $10,000 fine.

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Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel5 photos

Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel – Archeologists in the area are outraged and hope to salvage artifacts from the rubble.

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Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel5 photos

Ancient pyramid destroyed for gravel – The pyramid, which stood 65 feet tall, was built around 250 B.C. with hand-cut limestone bricks. The pyramid probably contained living quarters as well as tombs for local residents.

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A Mayan pyramid that has stood for 2,300 years in Belize has been reduced to rubble, apparently to make fill for roads.

Local media in the Central American country of 334,000 people report the temple at the Noh Mul site in northern Belize was largely torn down by backhoes and bulldozers last week.

"This is one of the worst that I have seen in my entire 25 years of archaeology in Belize," John Morris, an archaeologist with the country's Institute of Archaeology, told local channel 7NewsBelize. "We can't salvage what has happened out here -- it is an incredible display of ignorance."

The institute's director, Jaime Awe, called the destruction "one of the worse set of blows I have felt philosophically and professionally."

The pyramid was the center of a settlement of about 40,000 people and 81 buildings over 12 square miles, according to 7NewsBelize. It stood about 65 feet tall and was built around 250 B.C. with hand-cut limestone bricks, archaeologists said.

The limestone is quality material used to upgrade local roads, and it's prized by contractors, local opposition legislator John Briceno told CTV3 News.

"The Mayas use good material to build their temples, and these temples are close to (the village of) Douglas so that means that they have to use less diesel, less wear and tear; they can do more trips per day, and at the end of the day they can make more money," CTV3 quotes Briceno as saying.

"Like a huge palace or building or a huge temple, it would have had many rooms in there, multilayered rooms so you have rooms for people living, and you would also had several tombs in there of the people who lived in this area here," Morris told 7NewsBelize.

Awe said archaeologists would try to go through the rubble for artifacts.

"I'm hoping that there will be bits and pieces that we can acquire from any kind of work that we do there. But to say that we can try to preserve the building anymore; that is impossible," he told News5.

The mound sits on private land, and archaeologists said they would ask police to take action against both the landowner and contractor, according to reports.

"It is against the law; it is against the nature act to willfully destroy an ancient monument," Awe told News5. "Any willful destruction of an ancient site or monument has penalties of 10 years' imprisonment or $10,000 for this kind of destruction."

Work at the site stopped when the archaeologists were alerted to it, but the site's scientific value has been severely compromised, they said.

Its value will now be as something else, Moore told 7NewsBelize.

"It's a monument of ignorance, and unfortunately that's the way it is," he told the station. "Now we will probably have to look at this and say that it is a good example of what not to do."